Written by former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo, This Week in Education covers education news, policymakers, and trends with a distinctly political edge. (For archives prior to January 2007, please click here. For posts after November 2007, please click here.) Comments on this blog are now closed.

By Margaret Paynich January 24, 2007 at 11:02 AM

The Carnival of Education returns home this week to The Education Wonks. As usual, there are a variety of education topics and submissions. Here's an interesting one: NYC Educator teaches in the New York City Public School System. Educator is telling us all about the Petty Tyrant EduCrat who allowed a hurt child to bleed until the necessary hall pass was obtained. Only then was the kid put into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital......

By Alexander Russo January 24, 2007 at 10:09 AM

If like me you are trying to avoid doing any real work today, there's a fun little gizmo in the NYT that lets you see how often and where a word shows up in one of the SOTU speeches of the last six years. Based on a quick search for schools, education, and no child, it seems pretty clear that this speech was less focused on education than others in the past. I count eight mentions for schools in 2001, 11 mentions in 2004, but just 4 last night. But you better check for yourself - you know how bad ...

By Alexander Russo January 24, 2007 at 9:19 AM

Speaking of the education industry, last week Erik Robelen wrote a fascinating piece for EdWeek that among other things described the foundation trend towards funding the growth and spread of EMOs -- education management organizations -- to run groups of charter schools instead of invididual operations (Venture Fund Fueling Push For New Schools). This week, charter insider Marc Dean Millot writes that EMOs are "a poor business model" whose economies of scale are mostly illusory (What Happened to the Charter Idea?: (I) Why “Bottom-Up” Became “Top-Down”). (subscription required). But Millot, who formerly ran a national charter organization and now puts...

By Alexander Russo January 24, 2007 at 8:45 AM

I'm still groggy from trying to give immediate reactions to the President's speech last night (Live-Blogging The State Of The Union) -- which was fun but ridiculous -- meanwhile, others make some interesting (and similar) points this morning: UPDATE: A Constrained Vision: "At the State of the Union speech tonight, two of the First Lady's guests had something to do with education." (Ed policy in the First Lady's box) UPDATE 2: Get Schooled: "It didn't take President Bush long to bring up education in his "State of the Union" address last night, and it took even less time for him ...

By Margaret Paynich January 24, 2007 at 8:00 AM

Bush Revives Some Past Proposals NYT Mr. Bush also returned to the signature bipartisan accomplishment of his first term, the No Child Left Behind legislation that requires schools to demonstrate yearly progress in students’ achievements. He urged Congress to renew the law. Bush to Push School Voucher Proposal AP President Bush is making another run at giving poor students private school vouchers, but the Democratic-controlled Congress appears ready to block that move. After the Last Lap, It's Time for SAT Prep NYT The course, paid for with a $100,000 federal grant, is intended to help poor and immigrant runners ...